15, 25.5, 2.3

Pick a number, any number. You’d be right with any of them if someone asked you “how long have Ransom and Walter been a couple?”

It was fifteen years ago today that we got married, in all senses of the word except the legal one. The wedding was held in Sudler Hall on Yale’s campus, officiated by Rev. Kate Lattimore and attended by family and friends. There were vows, rings, cake and music – including a never-heard-since piece my husband composed for the occasion.

If you said 25.5 you’d be talking about the number of years that Ransom and I have lived together. It was in April of 1986 that I walked away from a new job as the general manager of a Richmond, Virginia, restaurant, sold most of my possessions and moved to New York. Crazy, yes, but the best decision I ever made.

And it was a little over two years ago that we were legally married here in the great state of Connecticut after the state legislature made same-sex marriage possible. (Between the two weddings we also held a Civil Union ceremony, so we have in fact tied the knot three times).

Tonight will be a quiet one; Ransom leaves tomorrow for Brazil so we’ll likely have a simple supper and perhaps cake for dessert; the real celebration will be later this month when we cruise from Rome to New York.

Last night we contemplated another part of our past as we watched HBO’s The Strange History of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Though the impact of the show has been diluted a bit by the September 20^th overturning of this hateful policy, it is still a powerful documentary that I recommend for its historical importance if not its cinematic quality.

In May of 1971 I had avoided the Army by telling my draft board I was gay. By 1975 I was a gay activist, fighting homophobia at VCU and in the larger society; in November of that year I attended the Gay Academic Union Conference in New York and met Copy Berg, the Navy ensign who followed Leonard Matlovich’s lead and came out publicly to his superiors.

In other words, my history with this issue goes back a long way. Add to the mix that I am an Army brat whose father served his country for over thirty years and, well, there are lots of feelings and emotions around the military and gays in the military.

Ransom and I have been married three times and society as we know it has not ended. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been repealed and the military services have not collapsed. Isn’t it time that America got completely over its ignorant homophobia?